Getting an air-assault army to work

[Wdll]

Yeah, don't try it.
The only time this worked good was when the enemy had no air defence worth while, left.

In game terms, it depends against who you play.
Against the AI it is easier to suppress or kill their air defences. Too easy. The problem/issue is the AI does not move his air defence assets. Send a couple or drones or whatever to locate his air defences, then fire your artillery like crazy.

You can also try to flood their air defence system by having ****load of helicopters and planes move on the same turn. Just make sure after you move a heli and it gets fired uppon, move another heli, not the same.
Basicaly try to make the enemy use all its defence as soon as possible.

Against humans it can get more difficult. Sure, in a single battle you might be able to fool/surprise the human, but in a campaign game that he knows you have invested heavily in such a force, he will take the appropriate measures against your units and neutralise the threat.

[rcp90]

I haven't even tried using it against a human enemy, the AI is still generally slaughtering me! I've had better success against a serious power like Russia, because then SEAD aircraft can at least knock out SOME of their big sams and all that, and since an industrial nation would use tanks that are worth lots of points, the Apaches and all suddenly become a lot more useful. But with my friend I play now, we seem to have a pattern of 1 of us goes high-tech nation and the other opposes him with a low-tech country. So, low tech means lots of shoulder launched missles laying around, and I have a much harder time suppressing them.

thanks for the advice though. I'm just a bit of a stubborn bastard, going to keep pounding my head on the wall till I figure it out, or get a concussion, whichever happens first lol

[Imp]

It can work if expect radar air defence SEAD are vital.
Verses MANPADS the thing is to locate them often the hard way then hit them with arty or smoke out if do not have TI. Use terrain to your advantage like streams etc to fly down dropping smoke where its open. Obviosly no terrain to hide behind is not helo country the more hills terrain feautures the better.
Apart from your Air Cav attack helos I generaly buy in pairs with a scout helo for each.
It tests the water & checks out LOS for targets rather than moving attack helo & finding no shot.
It can work I remember a river crossing in which I let the AI buy my force, nearly all air & arty with a few ground units who made it over the river easy as Air Cav cleared the bank. Vs AI mind & the comment about AI not moving its AA seems wrong to me. Not played it for a while but it moves both SAMs & Mobile AA guns.
The thing to remember is yes they may be fast but really treat as armed trucks so take care on the approach. Vs a human use the if a decent sized map attack one place hopefully drawing his forces in then use your speed to shift to the real attack position. If you can get a hill between the 2 those MANPADS are twidling there thumbs.